


It's Late

by dragonlisette



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2009, 2010, 2011, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-13
Updated: 2014-10-13
Packaged: 2018-12-03 21:27:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11540748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonlisette/pseuds/dragonlisette
Summary: inspired bythis tumblr post(I can’t wait for the day that instead of “It’s late, I have to go.” you will say “It’s late, let’s go to bed.”)





	It's Late

**Author's Note:**

> [originally posted on tumblr.](http://cityofphanchester.tumblr.com/post/99919134475/its-late)

A dark bedroom in the south of England, a dark bedroom in the north of England, a Sony Vaio, an Apple Macbook, messy brown hair, messy black hair, a late night in early autumn, 2009. The pixilated Skype call picks up quiet talk and tired eyes and soft smiles. Greetings have been made, stories have been told. There’s nothing important left to say, but neither of them wants to stop talking. A long, comfortable pause stretches out. The younger one glances at the time, winces.

“‘s late.” he says, stifling a monumental yawn. “I have to go,”

“Don’t.” the older one says, reaching his fingertips out to brush the screen, like it’ll help.

“Don’t wanna.” The one called Dan giggles and reaches out to touch his own screen, where the other’s fingers would be if laptops were portals. The action is partly indulgent imitation, mostly actual desire. He can’t stop thinking that he doesn’t even know what Phil’s hand feels like. Is it soft or rough, cold or warm? How tight is his grip? Will they ever hold hands? His eyes flicker down to the laptop’s keyboard, fix on the J key, because it would hurt to much to try and meet Phil’s eyes when they’re ruined by the webcam. What would his eyes look like in real life? What would it feel like to be in the  _same room_  as him? He lets his hand slip down the screen and return to his side. Phil’s done the same, and now the view is just their faces, looking mournfully back at each other. The silence has stretched out again.

“Then don’t. Don’t go.” Phil’s voice shies away from actually pleading, his tone light but too soft to be entirely a joke.

“It’s three o’clock in the morning,” Dan says, already melting. He’ll give in, if Phil begs. He curls sideways into the duvet and rests his head on his fist, waiting for the response. Watches the person who’s far too far away ruffle his hair back into place.

Phil doesn’t press it, as if he knows that Dan will relent. He nods, the Skype call glitching as he does, his face distorting as it’s caught mid-movement. He says something, a jumble of vowels.

“What?” Dan asks, chest aching with tears he’s not going to cry. He’s lucky enough to have Phil at all, he tells himself, a mantra he’s repeated far too often these past weeks.

“I miss you,” Phil repeats, and he sounds just as miserable as Dan feels.

“Miss you too,” he mutters, and then there’s a prolonged silence, Dan blinking hard at the stinging in his eyes. He watches Phil shove at his fringe again, getting it out of his eyes, and he wonders what it would feel like to touch his hair. He tries to imagine reaching out, touching real skin, solid and unyielding and warm with real, human blood. He tries to imagine Phil’s laugh without the crackle of a speaker. He thinks about how all his thoughts are tinted with  _if_.  _If_  I meet Phil,  _if_  things work out,  _if_  I get to talk to him or touch him or kiss him,  _if if if_. He wants to think  _when_ , he wants to so badly. He doesn’t dare.

“Hey, Dan,”

“Yeah?”

“Promise you’ll sleep?”

Dan shrugs. He’s tired but that never makes a difference. He can never get his brain to shut up.

“Please? Or I’ll have to walk down there myself and make you go to sleep.”

“I wish.” Another long pause. If it were anyone other than Phil, Dan would be worried that he’d said the wrong thing. It doesn’t seem to be possible to say the wrong thing around Phil, so for a minute he just assumes it’s another pause. Then doubt starts needling him. “Did – should I not have – should I not have said that?”

“I just…I just wish that I could walk down there.” A pause, and now he’s forcibly rousing himself, painting on a smile that Dan can see through as easily as glass. “Come on. We’re being depressing. Good night. Let the bedbugs devour you with dreams.”

A minute later and Dan’s alone with the few weak tears he promised himself he wouldn’t cry. Long distance is so pretentious. It’s not romantic, not “distance makes the heart grow fonder.” It just hurts. He just wants everything to be tangible. He just wants to meet.

—

A bright apartment in the middle of a buzzing city. Late night. Early autumn. 2010. Outside the half-drawn blinds, cars whir through the dimness; inside, two lanky, bright-eyed boys curl into each other on a black sofa that’s too small for all their limbs. They’re both clutching video game controllers and leaning forward, their faces ostensibly twisted into serious expressions, hell-bent-on-victory, take-out-anything-in-their-way. Neither of them can shake the little smiles curving their lips.

The older one’s eyes suddenly widen desperately, and then he reaches blindly over, slapping the controller out of the younger one’s hands, a heroic bid to keep him from winning. It works; the younger one squawks out his indignation. The game fades away, a loading screen replaces it. Phil sets his own controller aside to pull at Dan’s shoulder, giggling uncontrollably. Dan pretends to be annoyed for a moment, but he yields at a placating kiss to the cheek, and then they’ve fallen into each other, kissing slowly and languidly, young and in love and with all the time in the world.

A phone buzzes from where it lies on the floor, and Dan reluctantly pulls away to peer over at it. He registers the time, not the message, and swears, turning back to hide his face in Phil’s shoulder. “‘s really late,” he says, voice muffled and small and pathetic, “I have to go back.”

The mood shifts drastically, suddenly. The clichéd epic music coming from the video game seems suddenly inappropriate; Phil shuts it off and then anchors his arms around Dan’s shoulders. They’re suddenly narrower, hunched, and it makes Dan look smaller, younger, as if he’s making himself a smaller target, protecting himself from life. “You can stay, you know.”

“I know.”

“Please, Dan, c’mon, you haven’t got lecture tomorrow, please stay.”

“You think I want to go?” His voice is brittle, like fractured crystal, wavering even through his attempts to hold it together.

Phil sighs, rubbing at his back awkwardly because he’s not sure what else to do. “No. You’re right, you have to go. I’m sorry, I’m just being selfish, but I know you’re just going to go back and sit in that freezing – that freezing prison cell by yourself and beat yourself up over your coursework – and – oh Dan, don’t cry.”

Because Dan is crying now, frustrated, angry, hopeless tears. He gulps some air, forces the tears back, pulls away. “Sorry.” he mutters, scrubbing at his eyes and then patting at the damp spot on Phil’s shirt, his movements anxious and jerky. “Sorry, just, I don’t know, it’s all so stupid, and I’m so stupid, and none of it makes any sense and I’m sick of it but – I’m sorry, I’d much rather stay, you know that, but I need to reread basically the whole textbook and – ”

“Dan,” Phil says, his voice steady to make up for the fact that Dan’s isn’t. He catches Dan’s wrist and presses a kiss to the back of his hand. “If you need to go back and revise, then go, but –  y’know, I’ve been to uni too, and you don’t get anything done trying to read two hundred pages in a night when you’re already stressed. Please stay, and you can get a proper start tomorrow, it’ll be fine, promise.”

“All right.” Dan mumbles, hugging his arms to his chest. A second later he’s not sure why he agreed, he’s given up hours of time, but Phil’s so pleased about him staying that he doesn’t want to go back on the decision. The mood’s shifted again, Dan still half-upset and Phil trying too hard. They talk about the Geddan video they’ll make for Halloween, but there’s not much left to decide and nothing they’re thinking of really works. Finally Phil picks Lion up off the floor, settling him in Dan’s arms. He’s too small to cuddle properly, so Dan balances him on his shoulder, remembering suddenly a small blue annotation,  _Dan is comfier than Phil_ , from that first Phil is not on fire, a year ago now, such a long time and also not very long at all. Two years ago was hell on earth, one year ago was better, and now – well, if it weren’t for university, this would be the happiest he’s ever been. He tips sideways, leaning into Phil’s warmth. “Can we go to bed please?” he asks, his voice smaller and more fragile than he would like.

“Yeah, of course,” Phil says, making his voice low too, fingers trailing through Dan’s hair comfortingly. “I’d carry you but you’re too tall and I need to turn the lights off or the mystery narwhales will swim out of the sink.”

“Who let you become an adult?”

“God did, obviously.”

Dan is shepherded gently off the couch and prodded along to the hall. He rather suspects Phil dawdles in the kitchen while Dan changes into borrowed pyjamas; the lights go off very slowly for how small the apartment is and it saves Dan the obvious and agonizing self-consciousness he feels stripping in front of anyone, let alone Phil, whose eyes unintentionally linger. It’s cold; he rifles in a drawer and pulls on Phil’s York hoodie, mostly because it’s too big for him and he knows Phil will get possessive and starry-eyed and dote over him and he could really use that right now. Sure enough, when Phil appears in the doorway, his face melts into a smile. “Please never take that off.”

“Why do you get so weird when I wear your hoodies?” Dan asks, a little glow of happiness in his ribcage, sinking back to sit on the bed, pulling his knees up to his chin.

“Shut up,” Phil tells him, changing innocently, shamelessly, without the awkward scarlet glow of embarrassment that Dan can’t seem to shake. When he’s done, he turns around, makes a little  _budge over_  gesture. Dan moves over in the bed, making room, and fumbles with the blue-and-green duvet, pulling it over his legs. Maybe if all the colors of it were mixed together, it would approximate Phil’s eyes. He glances up and meets them. No. Probably not. Nothing ever could.

The light switches off, and the room is dark and quiet by city standards, the ebb and flow of traffic far below, light pollution pressing against the blinds. There’s the rustle of the bed and then Dan is lying curled up into a warm, sweet-smelling human shape, long limbs tangling together, the ends of Phil’s roughly flatironed fringe tickling Dan’s face. It will never be a totally graceful process, this falling-asleep-together. The first few minutes are filled with accidental eye-pokings and sharp elbows. It’s like two puzzle pieces that can’t be made to match up, have to be twisted and turned in endless permutations before they fit together properly. They’ve just arranged and rearranged all the arms and legs and gotten comfortable when Dan sits up with a gasp.

“What?” It’s a mix of panic and tired exasperation in Phil’s voice.

“We – we didn’t, like, brush our teeth,”

“Come  _back_ ,” Phil says, tugging him back down. “We’re adults. We can do whatever we want.”

Dan laughs for a long time at that, and when he stops giggling into Phil’s shoulder, he’s asleep and it’s morning.

—

Set the scene. It’s autumn, cold, gray, and rainy, sun setting over a massive concrete city. 2011. A different apartment, the same city. The room is dark except for the twin glows of two laptops illuminating two faces. Rain streaks the window in the crack where the blinds aren’t quite drawn. Thunder is a quiet static rumble in the background.

“Dan, Dan, look,” the older one says. Taller is no longer an appropriate qualifier. He wouldn’t admit it if you asked.

“Mm?”

They’re each lying against opposite arms of the sofa they’re sharing, legs tangled together in the center. Phil turns his laptop around in his lap, proffering it; Dan rolls his eyes and leans forward to adjust the angle of the screen so he can see. It’s a gif of two kittens, batting their paws at each other in a reasonably seamless loop, sun gleaming on their smoky-black heads. “Aw.” he says, less invested than Phil, who’s beaming, eyes glowing. Dan is tempted to lean farther forward, to place a kiss on the corner of his smile, but it’s too far and he falls back in defeat, a half-joking pout pulling at his lips.

“What?”

“Wanted to kiss you, but you’re too far away.”

Phil gives him an unsympathetic eyebrow raise, but he sets his laptop on the floor, holding his arms out. “Come on then, am I not worth the effort?”

Dan groans exaggeratedly, setting his own laptop aside and crawling over, settling into the space between Phil’s legs, resting his chin on Phil’s shoulder. It’s late, and for a self-proclaimed nocturnal creature with nowhere to be in the morning, he’s more tired than he wants to admit.

“Thought you wanted to kiss me?”

“I did.” He kisses Phil’s shoulder, wriggles in an attempt to get closer. Physics doesn’t want to allow it. Dan doesn’t care. He yawns, feels Phil’s arms settle around his waist. “It’s late,” he says, voice tinged with sleepiness. “Let’s go to bed.”

“What happened to I’m-Dan-Howell-And-I-Go-To-Sleep-At-Five-AM?” Dan feels Phil twist around beneath him, probably trying to catch a glimpse of the time.

“Dan-Howell-Etcetera-Whatever got tired, shut up.”

“It is nearly two,” Phil admits, gently pushing Dan upright. “Go on,”

Two o’clock finds two lanky boys, not quite boys anymore, jumbled together into a nest of blankets they’ve made their own. It’s their home, their safe haven, their sanctuary, their refuge. No one else can touch them here. It’s sacred, only Dan and only Phil.

Dan isn’t thinking of all that now; he’s too tired for the elaborate metaphors. All he cares about is that it’s warm, and it smells like clean laundry and Phil’s shampoo, and his ribs feel like they’re expanding with happiness. He breathes it all in. He still isn’t used to it. This home, this forever, this promise of night after day after night, an eternity of Phil if he wants.

“ ‘s weird.” he says, his voice a little more sleepily slurred than he wants. He wants his sentiments to be meaningful, and somehow he’s equated meaningfulness with articulateness.

“Hm?” Phil’s voice is blurred at the edges too, and that makes it all right somehow.

“Just, like, two years ago I didn’t think I’d ever get to meet you in real life. And now, if I was really weird and creepy, like, I could see you every second of every day if I wanted. I’m not special, I didn’t do anything to deserve this, but somehow I won the universe’s spend-forever-with-Phil-Lester lottery, and – ”

“Forever?” Soft. Barely inflected.

“Shit.” Dan shoves himself up on his elbows, staring down at Phil’s face, but his features are blank and his eyes closed. “I didn’t – ” He can’t think of any words to follow that, so the silence stretches on, broken only by his breath as it hisses uselessly out between his teeth. He gives up. “Yeah. I mean. I’d like that.”

Phil smiles, eyes cracking open. “Me too. Let’s do that.” He reaches up, pulls Dan down onto his chest, and Dan feels like he’s floating away on an ocean of blissful relief and happiness. A second later, “Don’t say you’re not special, by the way, like, I was surprised by the other – just, that’s not true, don’t say that. I wanted to make sure I said that, before I forgot or something – ”

Dan smiles without bothering to open his eyes. “Phil.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s late. Sleep.”

They do.


End file.
